Change
by SoInevitable
Summary: 1/1. Contains spoilers. Happens some time after season 5 finale.


**Change (1/1)**

"_What's with Hannah?"_ Brennan asked, prodding at the dead woman on the autopsy table.

"Huh?" Booth jumped.

Hodgins, Cam and Sweets all looked at him. "I said – what's in the bandanna?" She repeated.

"Oh," he sighed, ignoring the squints and Sweets pointedly. "The bandanna. Right." He watched as Brennan lifted the rotting piece of cloth away from the corpse's forehead, and grimaced when he saw the collection of maggots.

Hodgins grinned, picking one up. "Maggot juice, anyone?"

"Just stay away from my blender, Dr. Hodgins," Cam said firmly. He grinned.

"You take your last breaths, oblivious to the envy I have for you, as your end draws near," Mr. Fisher said to the maggots as he lifted them into a beaker one at a time, before following Hodgins to his part of the lab.

Sweets scratched the back of his head, and opened his mouth to say something, but Cam raised a hand to stop him. "Don't even bother," she said. His mouth closed.

Brennan looked up from her examination. "What're you doing here, Dr. Sweets? You know we couldn't come to the session today because of the case."

"Actually, I think regardless of the case, it was very important that you saw me today because of a certain…" Sweets looked at Booth, "situation."

Booth who had been strangely quiet for the most part immediately piped up. "No, there is absolutely no situation. We needed to work on our case and anything you think might be a 'situation'," he used his fingers to make quotation marks, "based on psychological mumbo-jumbo is not accurate, so just let us be."

Cam looked taken aback. "Am I missing something here?"

Brennan smiled, "I agree with you Booth – except for the mumbo-jumbo part, which isn't an accurate definition of the theoretical findings of–"

"Agent Booth," Sweets began, loudly, "is just being defensive, because he has something he's hiding from everyone and I bet he convinced you that this was really important." He looked at Brennan.

"I happen to think that all possible murder cases are equally important and more so than a session-" She began to reply but Booth cut her off.

"Can I talk to you, please?" he said, grabbing Sweets' arm roughly. "Outside."

"Ow, ow, ow," the younger man whimpered as he was practically dragged away.

"What was that about?" Angela asked, walking in. Brennan and Cam shrugged, deciding to focus on the identity that she had identified based on the artist's drawing.

Outside of the Jeffersonian, Booth pushed Sweets against the wall. It didn't hurt much, but Sweets was too busy studying the Agent's demeanour to worry about the pain anyway. "Look, I need you to knock it off, alright? Stop with the psychoanalysing and making everyone think there's something going on, because there isn't!" Booth heaved.

The psychologist raised his hands in surrender, and after a moment of glaring, Booth let him go. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, making his voice sound as mild as possible.

Booth crossed his arms defiantly, but undid his stance when he realised that he needed to say something before it drove him insane. "I met this girl in Afghanistan, and we're kind of... you know..."

"Doing it?" Sweets offered.

He glared. "We're _together_. But I don't want anyone finding out–"

"Why would it be a problem if anyone found out?"

"Because- because..." He threw his hands in the air. "It's not official or anything yet, so you know..."

"I think this has nothing to do with anybody finding out... you're only worried about Dr. Brennan finding out, right?" Sweets smiled.

"Well after what happened before I left and everything – yeah! Yeah I guess I am hiding it from Bones and I don't need _you_ telling her."

Booth looked worked up again, and seemed ready to throw a punch at Sweets. Immediately, he raised his hands again to make sure he wasn't about to be hit. "Wait a second... What happened before you left?" Booth hung his head, and Sweets got the hint, putting an arm around his friend and directing him away from the Jeffersonian. "Come on, let's get some coffee."

Instead of asking Brennan to come along like he usually would, Booth asked Dr. Saroyan to accompany him, as they had found another victim nearby the earlier one. Cam asked him why, when Brennan was perfectly free for the job, but he protested and insisted it was not a big deal in the slightest. He was sure Brennan didn't mind anyway – that wasn't like her.

When the corpse was packed and the FBI were taking it back to the lab, booth dropped Cam off, hoping that he wouldn't run into Brennan before he went to his office. His luck had run out apparently because there she was, running up to the car, waving.

"Booth!"

He swore, letting the window roll down.

"Booth, we've got a suspect – both victims were working at the same office a few years ago, and their boss was apparently very aggressive," Brennan said, proceeding to give him a list of details.

"Okay, I'll see you later, then?" he tried, once she was done.

"You don't want me to come along?" she asked, looking almost hurt. Booth shook it off – Bones didn't get offended. That wasn't like her.

"No, it's not that, Bones. It's just not necessary, plus I'm sure you have a lot to do now, with the new victim."

"Oh – well I guess you're right," she said.

"Kay, see ya," he replied, giving her a small, awkward smile and driving away.

When Brennan re-entered the lab she went to get some coffee. There, she found Sweets giving Angela a profile of what he suspected the killer to be like. She sat down with them, not really focusing on the case, still unable to understand what was going on.

"I think Booth is avoiding me," she said, looking confusedly into her cup of coffee.

Angela and Sweets stopped their conversation abruptly. "Sweetie, what's wrong?" Angela asked.

"Booth has been avoiding me since he got back from Afghanistan."

"Are you sure? Maybe he's just preoccupied," her friend tried.

"Dr. Brennan, maybe you should ask Agent Booth why he is being distant with you," Sweets offered, wanting nothing more than for his friends to make peace.

Brennan shrugged and said nothing more on the subject, choosing to focus on the case instead. Sweets backed off a bit as well, but hoped that they would indeed talk about their 'situation'. He was hoping that things would improve by the time he next saw them, but the air around them just seemed to be getting tenser by each passing day. So much so that even Brennan was becoming distraught and distracted, losing her grip on the case and the findings.

In their next session, when both partners appeared, Sweets was more than relieved. "Okay, guys, I think we really need to address some of the underlying issues that have occurred between you since Agent Booth returned from Afghanistan," the psychologist said, ignoring Booth's death glare. "So, Agent Booth, is there anything you'd like to share from your experience there? Anything you'd like to tell Dr. Brennan?"

Booth crossed him arms. "No."

Brennan pursed her lips, knowing something was up. And that had to mean something, because usually she had no clue. Booth had been avoiding her eyes, avoiding talking to her, avoiding her in general. She had been wondering what it was he had suddenly found so repulsive because she was sure she looked the same and that she smelled fine.

"Dr. Brennan, do you feel like something is different between you and Agent Booth?" Sweets tried.

"Yes I do," she said immediately, and finally Booth turned to look at her in the eye. "You've been shunning me."

"What?" her partner exclaimed, in much too high a voice. "That's ridiculous. I haven't been _avoiding _you. Who says _shunning_ anyway?" he tried deflecting.

It didn't work of course. "I think you have, and I've tried thinking of a hundred reasons as to why and I've only come up with two theories," Brennan said.

Sweets was interested now, especially at the fact that Brennan had caught on. "What theories are those?"

"Well..." she started. "Theory number one is that whatever reason you have for avoiding me is completely irrational and that's why I can't figure it out."

Booth sighed exasperatedly. "Just because it's not rational to you doesn't mean that it's irrational, Bones!" He faced her completely now, and even invaded her space slightly as he defended his case. "Sometimes the opposite of rational is emotional, and sometimes, I'm allowed to put my emotions before rationalism!"

Brennan bit her lip, watching Booth's face turn a deep red colour as she processed what she had heard. He had never been so vocal about her way of thinking before, and how it differentiated from his. "My second theory..." she sighed, "is that it has something to do with what happened before you left, and while I am used to compartmentalising..." she was surprised when tears filled her eyes as she continued, "I have found it... very difficult lately."

"Really?" Sweets asked, eyes wide.

Brennan stood up, ignoring their spectator, and continued her speech with tears falling from her eyes. "I have not been able to focus on the case. I keep looking at the bodies, staying there at night, but I keep missing it. I know it's there and I know I'm missing it... I don't understand why – I – I have been able to move on from death... I have been able to move on from a lot of things... but when you changed on me – I couldn't do it Booth! I can't do it!"

Booth stood up, holding his partner by her shoulders. She was shaking, sobbing even, and all he could do was bring her into his arms. She wept against his shoulder for the partner she felt she had lost, for her mind that could not function with that loss, and for her heart that seemed only half in existence, though she would not have put it quite so poetically.

"Why did you change on me, Booth? Why can't I handle it?" Brennan cried, grabbing him by the lapel of his jacket.

"Shh, Bones. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry," Booth whispered, holding her. He rested his cheek against her hair, holding her tightly. Sweets watched this public display of affection and wondered if he should leave, but decided against it – they might need him. Plus, it was getting good.

It took a while for Brennan to calm down, but when she did, she looked into his eyes deeply with her red ones and asked him again, "why Booth?"

"I..." he sighed. "You remember before I left, how I said that I had to move on?" Brennan nodded. "I tried doing that, Bones, and I met somebody... and I didn't know how to tell you."

She pulled away from him, suddenly out of tears and words for a moment. "Oh," she said, simply, looking away.

"Bones?" Booth approached her, touching her arm. She shied away.

"You should have told me. Then I could..." her eyes filled with tears again, "then I could move on too."

The way she said it pulled something in Booth; made his heart sink and fuel a fire that he didn't know existed. Suddenly he was angry, and it was the anger he had been pushing aside for years now. He would not hold back any longer.

"No, Bones! No, Temperance. No." Brennan visibly shrank in front of him. "You need to stop this compartmentalising. I don't care how rational you are, because you know what – you're still human. And sometimes I forget it! Sometimes I think you're above us all, but then here you are in a mess. You have emotions just like everyone else, just like me. And I want you for one second, to think of us –" he took her shoulders, and looked her in the eye. "Think of how great we would be. Think of when we kissed under the mistletoe, and before I left. When we risk our lives for each other, how we would do anything for each other. I would do _anything_ for you, Bones. _Anything._ And you can give me that crap about how love is a just a series of chemical reactions in the brain, but you know what, we have been designed to feel those reactions, and so much more." He breathed heavily, before completing his admission. "You would do anything for me too. You love me too, and if you can tell me right now that you do, and that we can be together, I will end things with Hannah. I won't ever speak to her again..." he paused. "Just give me you, Bones."

Brennan opened her mouth to say something, anything, but after all that, she wasn't sure if any of her defences would work. She wasn't even sure if she wanted them to anymore. All she knew was, Booth was right and Sweets, who was currently brushing away tears from his cheeks knew that just as well as she did.

And then, for once in her life, she did something she'd never thought she'd do. She acted without thinking, she acted without using her mind – though she would deny it later – and she kissed Booth. She grabbed him by the neck and pulled him to her, letting him taste her fully, salty tears and all. She met his tongue with a passion that she felt within every fibre of her being and she never wanted it to end. Booth kissed her back fully, taking her into his arms. They only pulled away when they needed a breath and then they came back down to reality.

Rapidly, her tears became happy ones amidst her smile. She held his face between her hands, knowing she could never let him go again. There would be no other girl for him, and no other man for her, for the rest of their lives. "You can have me," she whispered.


End file.
